Final: Ole Miss 75, South Carolina 71

Big Picture: We talk about big wins vs. bad losses. The Rebels don’t have that big-time win right now, which means they can’t afford any stinker losses.

South Carolina was one of those last year, and while the Rebels rallied to win in Columbia two weeks ago, it looked like that rally might be harder to duplicate with the Gamecocks in control in the middle of the second half.

The Rebels forced some turnovers, got some easy buckets and got back in the game. I still think the NCAA is a long shot for this team due in large part to power numbers for the SEC. South Carolina would have been a bad numbers loss, but that would not explain how well the Gamecocks played much of this game.

Regardless of the opponent’s record, the Ole Miss comeback was impressive because the Rebels looked so out of it at one point. They were launching 3s and missing. Jarvis Summers and Marshall Henderson both came up limping at different times, Henderson more than once.

Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy could have taken his team to task for a lack of intensity but summed up the comeback this way: “I don’t know if I’ve ever been more excited about what i just witnessed. That was big-time basketball.”

Turning Point: Ole Miss was down 15 with 10:53 left when the comeback began. It’s not surprising that Jarvis Summers hit the biggest shots in the comeback, but Summers had to overcome his own sub-par game in the minutes previous. In the middle of the second half Summers, averaging almost 18 a game, had just five points.

Twice Summers knocked down jump shots to give Ole Miss the lead. At the 3:56 mark it was a 3-pointer to make it 67-66. Then at the 2:15 mark it was a pull-up jumper to make it 69-68. Ole Miss would not trail again.

As big as Summers was, so too was the layup by Aaron Jones off a Summers assist — Jones then hit a free throw — to make it 74-69 with 23.8 seconds left.

Who’s Your Daddy? Summers finished 6-for-11 from the floor, 1-for-2 from 3 for 15 points. He had eight assists, four turnovers and two blocked shots in 37 minutes. He was 2-for-5 from the free throw line.

When is the last time Marshall Henderson hit only two 3-pointers and had a 20-point game. Henderson was 2-for-9 from 3, 5-for-8 from 2 and finished with 21 points and four steals.

Of Interest: South Carolina guard Brenton Williams is a 40-percent 3-point shooter for the season. He was 0-for-6 from 3, 0-for-10 from the floor in the first meeting against Ole Miss, but he was on today, going 6-for-12 from the floor and 5-for-8 from 3. Williams was 5-for-6 from 3 but missed his last two looks in the Ole Miss comeback.

South Carolina forward Michael Carrera is only 6-5 but routinely got good position against the Ole Miss bigs and finished with 11 rebounds.

The Rebels finished minus-10 on the glass but held South Carolina to 37.5 percent shooting in the second half after the Gamecocks shot 56 percent in the first t20 minutes.

Ole Miss scored 23 points off 18 turnovers forced.

Next Up: The Rebels are at Kentucky Tuesday night at 6 in an ESPN game.

Here’s Kennedy:

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South Carolina is shooting 56 percent, much of that due to guard Brenton Williams, a 40-percent 3-point shooter on the year, who was 0-for-6 from 3 against Ole Miss in Columbia.

Williams is 3-for-5 from the floor, 3-for-4 from 3.

The Rebels are giving up lots of penetration, and South Carolina is also getting a position edge against the Ole Miss bigs. The Gamecocks have scored after rebounding their own missed free throws a couple of times.

Ole Miss was down nine with just 1:23 left in the half but scored the last five points in spite of a turnover that gave Carolina the ball with the shot clock off.

Marshall Henderson leads Ole Miss with 13 points. He’s 6-for-9 from the floor – including a layup after tipping the ball away and receiving an outlet pass from Anthony Perez with 3.4 seconds left – but is only 1-for-4 from 3. Henderson also has a reverse dunk off an outlet pass.

Ole Miss is minus-5 on the glass right now and has six turnovers, not terrible, but has struggled at times against South Carolina pressure.

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From the Mother Ship, Ole Miss is at home today against South Carolina trying to rebound from an 86-70 loss at Tennessee, its second in SEC play.

Notes: Ole Miss F Anthony Perez scored a career-high 22 points in the first meeting. … G Jarvis Summers is the only player in the SEC to rank in the SEC’s top 10 in scoring and in the top five in assists and field goal percentage.… Marshall Henderson was 3-for-10 from 3 at South Carolina but is coming off an 8-for-19 performance at Tennessee. … The Rebels rallied from a 10-point halftime deficit to win at South Carolina. … South Carolina G Brenton Williams was 0-for-10 from the floor, 0-for-6 from 3 but is shooting 40.4 percent from 3 for the season. … Gamecocks G Sindarius Thornwell had 24 points and 11 rebounds in the first meeting.